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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

We bought a bunch of plants this year, including tomatoes, strawberries, peas, some herbs and lastly the kids picked up a seed potato each from the local Farmer's Market to take part in the Potato Growing Contest. We picked up some free buckets from the ice cream stand and added these to our collection of containers on our balcony. This is the first year we have tried out vegetables so will see how it goes. Judging for the potato contest is September 22nd.

Here are some pictures of kids enjoying planting.

I love to see comments and would love to see your Wordless Wednesday so link up below and I will stop by!

My experience with Cozy Bums started when I was pregnant with our second child. Having cloth diapered with our first child I knew I would be with this one too. However, I also had set aside some money so that I could make an investment in some more decent diapers.

We finally settled on the Fuzzi Bunz Diapers, and having used Velcro diapers with our son we were excited for the snaps and the pocket diaper concept. We had a great time picking out colours for our "stash". We are currently still using Fuzzi Bunz in size mediums and working toward potty training. I really like this color of Fuzzi Bunz in Crushed Berries.

For those that of course live outside of Cozy Bums Home location, they are happy to offer free shipping in Canada on all orders over $99

The next item we got this time around that was different than our first was the hanging diaper pails. Space is at a premium in our townhouse and we wanted something that would minimize odors and hanging on a door meant it would not take up floorspace. There of course is a faint odor when putting in a diaper as you open the bag but otherwise this product is amazing. We got two so we could always have one to use while washing. The beauty of this bag is once the diapers are rinsed and in the bag you don't handle the diapers. Dump the bag and shake the diapers into the washer and you are set.

We also love the Diaper Sprayer that we received from Cozy Bums. The bum Genius cloth diaper sprayer quickly became a favorite in our house. Clean up has been so much easier with this item and install was nice and easy. As long as we remember to not turn up the spray too high clean up of diapers is a quick, not get your hands yucky process.

CozyBums has a wide variety of other products such as swim diapers, cloth wipes, wet bags, cloth diaper friendly laundry detergent, changing pads, fasteners, creams, training pants, diaper bags, baby clothes and gear, and baby and skincare. So there is something for everyone, even for those who are not cloth diapering or kids have outgrown diapers.

Cozy Bums also includes valuable diaper care information on their website and for those who love a sale (who doesn't), they regularly have those too!

Head on over and check out the website to browse or place an order. You can also interact with Cozy Bums on Facebook. If you have any questions contact info is readily available on the website or Facebook and owner Kerri would be delighted to answer any questions you have!

WIN IT

Cozy Bums has offered to give one CANADIAN Mom of Two Mischievous Monkey's reader with $50 to spend on anything they sell.
So be sure to come back between June 4th and June 15th to enter to win as part of the Fluffy Butts Cloth Diapering Giveaway. You will also be able to hop around and enter for other prizes from other participating Blogs.

Disclaimer: All opinions expressed in this post are 100% mine and I was not monetarily compensated to write this post.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

The month of May is Speech and Hearing Month, so I thought I would share some of our first reactions to finding out our daughter had hearing loss, and info on newborn screening and hearing loss.

I must admit that when our daughter did not pass her newborn screening test before leaving the hospital we didn't think much of it. The room was noisy, her ear canal was small, all reasons that led us to believe everything was fine. Then we went back a week later to test again, still she did not pass. She responded to our voices, she responded to her brother singing to her (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the song he sang to her all the time while I was pregnant) so we thought she could hear just fine.

We waited another five weeks before they could do a more in depth test. We went back the next day for results and found out she had permanent, mild to moderate hearing loss.

When we were told she would need hearing aids, our first thought was how are we going to keep hearing aids on a two month old baby. Turns out for the first while we weren't actually going to keep them on her, we were going to spend our days constantly putting them back in after she pulled them out and tried to eat them. She eventually got used to them and even asked for them to be in a couple years later....

The Newborn hearing screening is a fairly new program and in fact our daughter was one of the first babies to be screened in the city we live in. We counted ourselves lucky after hearing that bit of info. Especially given that childhood hearing loss was not typically diagnosed until age 2.5-3, sometimes as late as 5-6, much past the critical period for speech and language development. In Canada the Universal Newborn Hearing Screening was announced in March 2005, with final screening sites in place in 2009.

Findings indicate that diagnosing hearing loss in infancy and providing child with hearing aids and speech therapy by six months allows children to typically develop at normal levels for social, emotional development as well as similar speech and language as their peers.

Some interesting facts:

At least 3 out of 1000 babies born have some degree of hearing loss. This rate increases by 10 for infants receiving care in NICU due to their significant medical problems that put them at risk for hearing loss. Historically only high risk babies (such as low birth weight, preemies, NICU babies were screened for permanent hearing loss.

Hearing Aids do not fix hearing as the inner ear is typically damaged with Sensorineural hearing loss. Hearing Aids simply amplify sounds so children still need therapy to learn to listen and speak. Hearing Aids do not work for all types of loss though, in some cases a cochlear implant is needed, in some surgery can be done to repair damage.

Dangerous Decibels

Decibel levels of 85 can be tolerated for 8 hours out of 24. For every additional 3 dB reduce exposure by half. The amount of time you are exposed to a sound affects how much damage it will cause. With extended exposure sounds 85 dB and greater can cause permanent damage leading to hearing loss.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

I had to share a picture of the wonderful breakfast in bed that I got on Sunday. I especially love the homemade crafts, and the attention to detail. My son insisted that I needed to have a newspaper to read.

Please link up with your Wordless (or not so Wordless) posts here. I would love to see pictures of what you got for Mother's Day!

About YNL- YouNeverLose.com is an amazing auction site that’s transforming the way people shop and play online. To play, you buy gift cards from retailers like Macy’s, GAP or Sears, and get them sent to you with free shipping. Then, for every dollar you spend on gift cards, you get free reward points to play in auctions to win even more amazing gift cards – think Amazon and Starbucks - at more than 90% off! How does scoring a $25 Amazon gift card for $0.24, or a $50 Wal-Mart gift card for $2.25 sound? It’s pretty amazing, and people like you are grabbing these great deals around the clock! Best of all, there’s no risk to play in the auctions – since you get reimbursed with gift cards for every dollar you spend.

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Learn more about YNL on Facebook and Twitter.Be sure to like YNL on Facebook because they will be releasing a 5 point code on their Facebook page the last day of this giveaway May 15th!

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Heather from "Full Price? Never!" had a lot of fun trying out the auction part of You Never Lose! Here are her thoughts: "YNL is high energy fun with the chance to win the option to purchase gift cards at pennies on the dollar. When I was playing I saw someone win a Trader Joe's $25 gift card for $1.81 {A-M-A-Z-I-N-G}! Simplified, all you have to do is buy a gift card and then you get points that you an use to bid on being able to buy another gift card at around 90% off {the one's I saw were going for that price}. Be careful though... saving this kinda money can make paying full price elsewhere extremely painful!"

Ready for the giveaway? Simply enter on the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win a $250 gift card. The gift card will be the winners choice from the stores available at that time on YouNeverLose.com.This giveaway ends at 11:59pm est on May 15th 2012.

Monkey Along With Us

Tara

About Me

I am mom to a 14 year old son (N) and 8 year old daughter (K). I work full time outside the home and my husband (J) is a SAHD. And because life would not be complete without a dog, we also have a two year old Labradoodle.

Join us for stories of our daily lives, challenges and fun times! I will also provide any helpful tips and info I have and reviews of products that help make our family life easier or that we just love.